10th Anniversary U.S. Extremes Boarderfest A Success

March 08, 2004

It was a battle between Summit County and Crested Butte locals at the 10th Anniversary U.S. Extremes Boarderfest held in Crested Butte, Colorado on March 3—7. Slopestyle, Boardercross, and Extremes—three of the daily events that brought roughly 200 competitors to Crested Butte, Colorado’s annual Boarderfest.

Over four days, the grassroots event gave away a total cash and prize purse of $35,000 in this four-day event along with four, seven night all-inclusive trips to Club Med. Although there were a few standout riders from locations like Washington, Vermont, Connecticut, New Jersey, and New Mexico overall the four day, three event competition was stacked with Colorado competitors battling it out for the daily prize purse that’s equal for men and women. The grassroots event (that’s getting bigger by the minute) went down like this:

After a day of arrivals and registration as well as a opening night reception and meeting, competition got underway on Wednesday morning with Boardercross. Held under the Sliver Queen lift, the course looked tight—jumps, burms, a few whoops, and the usual gates to get around. Racing got underway at 10 a.m. with each rider burning through the course solo for a time trial. Once trials were over, each rider was given a ranking and—if they qualified—placed into bracket. The men who had started time trials with 73 racers was cut to 32, women went from seventeen to eight, Jr. Men (age 14-17) were narrowed down from 24 to sixteen, and Jr. Women stayed with its eight competitors.

Overall the event went smooth, with only one huge crash in the men’s field. The top six racers each won a goody bag filled with prizes from sponsors. First, second and third places also took home the cold, hard, cash. That meant for the men Nick Baumgartner took home $1,500 for his first place finish; Lucas Dehmlow nabbed $1,000 for second; and Matt Templin scored $500.

The women were awarded equal prize money as the men—Marni Yamada took first place, Marissa Guniceielo came in second, and Lynne Neil brought home third. Juniors were awarded $100 for first place, 75$ for second, and $50 for third.

Day Two—Slopestyle

During the Slopestyle things started to get interesting—and Summit Country riders stood out. The contest was a new addition to the U.S. Extremes (replacing a triple jump) and was held in CB’s new Canaan Terrain Park underneath the Paradise lift. Snow was falling intermittently throughout the day, and the new snow was affecting speed—bad.

Even so, most competitors were able to get air off of the first two jumps, before slowing down into the third table. The riders who took top honors however, assessed the conditions and made good line choices to accommodate for the slow conditions. The course included five huge kickers, a mini rail at the top of the course, a long single barrel rail, a flat-box, a c-box, an up-flat-down, and a “battle ship” rail—an up-flat-up combined with a flat-down-flat.

For the Men, both the first and second place finishers hailed from Breckenridge and their park skills paid off. First place finisher Steve Uhen pulled out a huge 540, to 720, to a 360 over the first three tabletops and then went on to stomp the up-flat-down rail.

Second place finisher Nate Kern said, “”There was some tough competition out here today. A lot of kids throwing down so much style. I was stoked to be here and be with all these great athletes and on a great course. Stepan Babler, a Crested Butte local, nailed down the third place finish.

In the Women’s division, Boardercross winner and Seattle, Washington-local Marni Yamada pulled out a win with a high score on her second run of 23.4. Yamada looked effortless as she cleared over the many tabletops and held her speed through the course. Many of the other women competitors struggled to maintain the speed needed to hit all the features. Yamada added another $1,500 to her earnings from the previous day.

But, Silverthorne local Gabi Viteri oked liked she wasn’t having any trouble with her huge spins on her second run in the Jr. Women’s division—scoring a 25, finishing first in that division, and topping even Yamada’s score. Almost a full 10 points behind Viteri, Lindsey Telling of Avon came in second with a 16.6, and Bryn Appe of Charlotte, Vermont pulled off third place.

Men’s juniors saw another Summit Country competitor, Madison Ellsworth, taking home first place and $100 in cash; Chris Kircher of Angel Fire, New Mexico brought home $75 and second place; and CB local Brandon Reid came in third with a cool $50.

Day’s Three and Four—Extremes

The final two days of the U.S. Extremes Boarderfest is the heart of these contests with male and female winners each receiving 2,500 dollars cash. After a first day of cuts, riders are scored on an average of their runs from both days.

This year the first day of the contest was held on Sock-It-To-Me-Ridge, only the second time the venue had been opened for the Boarderfest event in its history. The ridge is a steep and technical area with a 500-foot drop and 43-degree slope. On each side it’s surrounded by trees and in the middle lies a band of rock cliffs and rocky chutes. Watching the many riders come down wasn’t pretty.

Event and Ski Patrol Director H. Baumm explained it best as he turned his back to the run as the next rider came down: “You combine 23 years of watching this kind of stuff and it gets kind of hard.” I asked whether it was because it simply got old, or if it was the people wrecking themselves off of the many cliffs and rocks, he simply shook his head in agreement saying: “A little of both actually.”

Even if H. Baumm wasn’t watching the many judges were and after a long day of riding cuts had been made for Saturday’s finals. Of the fourteen men who advanced nine were from Crested Butte showing that this is one event that definitely has locals favored. Six women and eight juniors also moved on to Saturday’s contest.

Saturday’s finals were held in a permanently closed area of Crested Butte’s extreme limits—the Hourglass. The section, with 1200 feet of vertical, ranges in pitch from 42 to 57 degrees, with trees, rocks, and cliff bands. A narrow, ugly avalanche chute—both the steepest section, at more than 50 degrees, and the “easiest route, bisects it down.

This year a new winner stepped up in the men’s division beating out former champion Clif Dimon. Christian Robertson, an instructor at the Crested Butte Academy, took two rough lines, rife with ‘no fall Zones,’ and attacked them both with fluidity and aggression. His first run taking an amazing one minute, 52 seconds and included a 30-foot drop into Barton’s Gully.

In the women’s finals, Jewels Larson rode solid into first place with several airs off some rocky pillows and hard-charging technical riding beating her competitor by almost 15 points. Crested Butte local Robin Soifer, pulled into second place, while Shannon Yates of Sandy, Utah rode into third.

The junior’s competition was rounded out on day two as well. Crested Butte Academy students Brandon Reid and Nick Catmur took first and second place respectively in the Jr. Men’s division. For the Jr. Women Emily Paul, from Jackson, Wyoming, ran away with first place, ahead of Baylee Carter, who currently lives in nearby Gunnison.